Month: July 2007

When my brother Ryan was 5 or 6, and still relatively normal, he had a friend named Timmy who lived across the street from the cul-de-sac where our house was before we moved to Georgia. Timmy’s family was a nice one; he had a baby sister, his dad drove a big Lincoln Mark IV and his mom was a nice, blond lady named Nancy who stayed home just like our mother did. Nancy and my mom became fast friends, and that’s how Timmy and Ryan got to be best friends too.

So, when my best friend Bill came for his summer visit with us that year, he not only had to put up with Ryan’s pestering parasitic presence, but he had to deal with Timmy tagging along from time to time too.

The neighborhood was relatively new and more and more houses were crowding around our pie-piece shaped tract lot. Saplings were desperately struggling to take root and neighbors desperate to keep up with the Joneses were dropping in sod and sprinkler systems every weekend it seemed. We lost access to a lot of the places we used to play as those open areas transformed into frames for houses and fences began springing up like ragweed on the sides of the rolling hills surrounding the sun-baked suburb. We had to go farther away from home to find open areas to play in, and my parents were in an ugly battle with a Frenchman who bought the house behind them over the fence that needed to go up and the property line.

That summer Bill brought his bike with him, so we could take bike rides and get away from Ryan and Timmy from time to time. Other times my mother left us “in charge” to watch Ryan while she was shopping or getting drunk. We’d stay in the cool of the central air conditioning and play inside when she was busy, and the most fun game we had was torture Ryan.

We got back from my grandmother’s house late the night before, so the next day was the first day that Bill and I were able to start enjoying his stay. We had long, hot days to enjoy and it was always okay for us to stay up late when Bill was there. We had to be quiet, of course, but we could stay up late. So it was going to be fun.

First on the agenda was a trip to a tiny little candy shop positioned behind the Stop-N-Go just a short bike ride from the new development. It was in one of the older parts of town, but the roads had been extended and wound up the steep hill to where our new houses were, so there was a line on the street where the old pavement stopped and the new pavement had been added just a couple of years before. The old streets were pock-marked and pot-holed with years of abuse and disrepair, and the tinier houses from the past era were swarmed by large, mature trees that shaded the yards and made the sidewalks buckle from beneath as the roots pushed under them. The steep hills that led down to Railroad Avenue from the side streets were a fun bike trip and we’d peddle down as fast as we could through the quiet neighborhood, whooping and yelling and being kids.

We’d be given an allowance for Bill’s visit. It was generally five dollars, which in the middle ’70s was a lot of money for two kids under 12. Naturally, we’d blow it all on candy, but it wasn’t as easy to do then as it is now. The miniature grocery store nestled in the bottom of an ancient two-storey stucco building had one of the best candy selections in town. We bought a lunch-bag full of stuff and had spent less than a dollar. Bill took those opportunities to tell me about all the new candy brands and types he’d tried since he last came, and pointed and said “Those are great, get some o’ those,” or “Aw, these are so damned good!” It was always so cool when Bill swore. I have no idea why.

So, the next trick was getting ourselves back to the house — it was uphill all the way — with our booty in hand. Boys didn’t have baskets on their bikes, of course. And, to make it worse, the bike my parents had purchased for me had shock absorbers on the front and a dense, heavy metal frame. It weighed about 10,000 pounds and scrawny, geeky-assed me had to peddle that son of a gun up hill for what felt like 10 miles.

By the time we got back home, I was exhausted, hot and sweaty. We walked into my room and were greeted by Ryan and Timmy.

I knew by the look on Ryan’s face that this was going to be his chance to show off in front of Timmy. He had that little brother sneer that tells you right away he’s going to try and push buttons and say things to tick you off, so that when you retaliate the scream for mom could be sounded. And my mother, overly protective of Ryan since he’d been run over by a truck at two years old, would rush in and get in the faces of the older kids to leave him and his friend alone. It never mattered who started it; it only mattered who was loudest. That was Ryan every time, all the time, bar none.

“Hey, who’s this?” Bill said, thrusting his chin at Timmy in greeting. Timmy shied away, and Bill got a quizzical look on his face, looking to me for cues.

“It’s Ryan’s friend Timmy,” I intoned heavily. “He lives across the street. What are you guys doing here, Ryan?”

“I live here too, JD!” Ryan said, his voice dripping with contempt.

“Yeah, not my choice. Bill, let’s get out of here,” I said quickly.

“Why?” Bill said casually, dropping onto my bed and bouncing. Ryan and I shared a room, and always had to my memory. But when Bill came to stay, he and I would stay out in the living room in sleeping bags. My mother always left the “spare” room for “guests” that never came. She never once considered separating Ryan and me, and when Bill came, he didn’t want to sleep there by himself.

Ryan was on his bed with Timmy standing next to him. Timmy was a nerdy little kid at five or so; he had what seemed like a big head, with his platinum blond locks and ice blue eyes peering out of his milky white skin. He had a mealy-mouse little voice that almost always whined, and a mono-toned laugh that was more squeal than giggle. He was pretty well-spoken and a hell of a lot quieter than Ryan, but he had a pants-wetting problem that his mother was trying to figure out and solve.

“Because we don’t want to be around these turkeys,” I said, staring right at Ryan, knowing what he was up to. “Turkey” was vernacular for jerk at the time, and Ryan was still sneering at me.

“Nah, they’re cool,” Bill said. “Want some candy?” He held out his open bag to Ryan and Timmy, and they hesitated only a second before diving in.

“Hey, just one!” he snapped, trying to close the bag as they tore into his stash like vultures.

“Mom says you have to share,” Ryan snapped, getting snippy. Here it comes, I thought. Not even 24 hours and it’s starting already. I knew the shout for my mother wasn’t far away now.

“I did share, you little prick,” Bill snapped back, and I instinctively blushed at his foul language in front of Timmy. I still thought it was cool, though. It made Bill seem more “bad” when he swore, and his use of words forbidden from our own vocabulary always attracted me.

“Mom –” Ryan started.

Bill stood up quickly, menacing Ryan with one fist clenched over his candy sack. “Shut up you little ass! I did share with you, butterball.”

Timmy was cowering between Bill and Ryan, who were squared off between the beds in the room. Mine was against one wall, with the foot of the bed pointing toward the door, and Ryan’s was against the opposite wall, on the other side of the room with a window between them and the closet at the foot of his. There were two nightstands between them and the ventilation register set into the floor. Other than that, the only thing separating the two was Timmy.

“I’m gonna tell my mom if you don’t get out of here and give me s
ome candy,” Ryan threatened, sitting forward on the bed in defiance of Bill. I don’t think Bill was used to being defied by little kids, or even kids his own age. Bill was used to getting what he wanted when he threatened other kids, and when he didn’t, he followed through on his threats. He’d grown up in a much more urban setting, in a much larger town, full of very different, city-smart and street-toughened kids. White-bread suburbia was different for him, and Ryan was a spoiled little snot with a mouth like a foghorn who knew that his mother was going to intervene every time he mouthed off and got into trouble.

“I did give you some, you little shit,” Bill spat, getting angry now. “You didn’t even say ‘thank you’ either, butterball.” He always called portly Ryan butterball. He said he looked like one of those Thanksgiving turkeys you get at the store with his waddling girth and double-chin.

“I don’t have to say ‘thank you’ — my mom says you have to share, so you have to give it to me.”

“Oh, I’ll give it to you all right, you fat little punk — right up your ass I’ll give it to you!”

Bill had lost his temper, and he moved forward and gave Ryan a firm stiff-arm shove to the shoulder, sending him backwards onto the bed.

Unfortunately, timid Timmy didn’t have the brains to get out of the way, and Bill’s body pushed the twiggy little whelp aside and down onto his butt, hard on the floor.

“Oh, sorry, kid,” Bill started, but it was too late. Timmy wailed and tears gushed down his cheeks as he made the loudest sounds I’d ever heard him make.

Bill’s face drained of color as he reached for Timmy’s hand, but Timmy was sitting square on the floor with his head hung and his eyes closed, with that siren sound vibrating our eardrums and bouncing off the walls, rattling the window in its frame.

“Here, Timmy, have some candy!” I shouted, holding out my open candy bag and trying to see down the hall, looking for that inevitable shadow of my mother rushing to murder us for making a child cry.

“Stop! Stop crying! It’s okay!” Bill said, then looked at me helplessly. “Is this guy some kind of sissy or something?” he asked.

“Well … yeah, but …” I stammered.

Bill had an idea. He dropped his bag on my bed and picked Timmy up quickly and put him over his shoulders behind his neck.

Timmy was startled into silence. “How about a ride in a helicopter, Timmy?” Bill said happily, trying to inject lightness in his tone to brighten Timmy more.

“Hey, put me down!” Timmy laughed, starting to giggle.

I started to warn him, “Bill, you don’t want to do that, he has a prob–“

Too late. Bill started spinning, with Timmy extended and stiff out on either side of his head, spinning like a helicopter’s propeller.

“Here we go, gettin’ ready for take off!” Bill said, and he spun a bit faster. Timmy was laughing uncontrollably, loudly, and Bill started making what he imagined were helicopter sounds.

“Bill, I don’t think you should –“

“Okay, let’s get up some speed and really move now!” Bill continued, and Ryan was laughing and squealing loudly along with Timmy, who was absolutely shrieking and turning red with mirth.

“Bill, I really think this isn’t a good idea, he’s –“

“Look out, JD!” Bill said, “here it comes for a landing!”

I closed my eyes and shook my head, brushing my long, unruly hair out of my eyes and sat on the foot of my bed, trying to stay out of the way. Gradually, slowly, Bill slowed the momentum of the boy and began to wind to a stop. Then he bent down and flipped Timmy over his shoulders to set the little tow head down on his feet between the beds again.

“There!” he beamed proudly, “wasn’t that more fun than …”

He stopped mid-sentence, looking at me. I had my hand on my forehead, a pained expression clearly stamped on my face, not looking at Timmy.

Bill’s face sank out of his broad smile, and he turned to look at Timmy.

There was a large, dark wet spot between Timmy’s legs, spread in almost a perfect circle out from the crotch. In the exact spot where Bill had him perched on his shoulders.

Bill’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh my God!” he whispered. “You pissed?? You pissed on me??” He was completely incredulous.

Timmy looked calmly at Bill.

“Well, you were spinning me and spinning me and …” Then he shrugged with his hands outstretched as though there were nothing more to say, no more explanation than that needed.

Silently, jaw slightly agape, Bill strode out of the room and past the linen closet just outside our bedroom door, into the bathroom beyond. The door closed and the lock clicked.

I looked over at Ryan and Timmy. They stood and moved quickly.

“Timmy’s gotta go home and change now,” Ryan said hurriedly. “Tell mom I went to his house.”

They raced down the hall and I watched behind them as they vanished into the foyer. Directly down the hall, I could see my mother through the sliding glass door of the dining nook, puttering in the garden. She’d never heard any of it.

A second later, the front door slammed shut. An instant after that, I heard the shower running in the bathroom.

When you’re a kid, and a stranger in a strange land, it is absolutely, vitally important that you be cool.

It wasn’t always possible to be “bad.” “Bad” was a special kind of cool that carried other sort of things. To be “bad”, you had to be really great at something, or a lot of things. But most of all, you had to be tough to be “bad”. That was the keystone, the foundation, of all badness — being tough.

One of my problems was, I was a dork. I had thick glasses and bad teeth, and my thick torso and long limbs made me look funky and weird even though I was more athletic than I knew. That led to the second of my problems: lack of confidence. So, for the most part, I didn’t compete with other kids in physical activities, because I was convinced it would lead to embarrassment and not being able to be “cool” any more. Being cool was crucial; it was the difference between being an outcast and being a punching bag.

With all that going for me, my first exposure to physical education in Georgia was horrible. It meant being in shorts — decidedly uncool — in front of a lot of kids that were looking for reasons not to like you. It meant being forced to participate in sweaty, stinky games with and against other kids, putting my cool facade at risk repeatedly. In fact, every day. And it meant that I was likely to be the subject of a lot of whispering, laughing and pointing — all favorite activities of kids with a stranger in their midst.

I didn’t have any choice either. This is part of school — they don’t ask you if you want to do it or not. You just do it. I decided then, that hot, first early autumn school year, that I’d try. I’d really try to be less than a dork, and see if I could do it. If I couldn’t, well … I always had the asthma card I could pull out and use.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, while I wasn’t an exceptional athlete, I was able to keep up with other kids my age, and was actually superior to some of them. There was big John Magnussen, an overweight smart kid that did everything he could to avoid PE. He brought in a note every year that pretty much excused him from PE, and sat in the bleachers of the gym or on the grass on the field, watching it all happen. There was Johnny Hunter, too, and while he wasn’t overweight or anything, he was a nerdy kid, and didn’t do very well. They ended up being friends of mine, as you can imagine, because we were all outcasts. It was band together or be isolated and mistreated. There was at least a little safety in numbers.

Scott Bianca was, I was pretty sure, well on his way to being gay. He and another kid — whose name I can’t remember to save my soul — hung around together. The term “gay” wasn’t popular in that age group at that time, and it certainly wasn’t accepted. So there we were, trying to survive the schoolyard and the humiliation of PE, the four of us being scorned, picked last or not at all until the teacher had to assign us a team, or just ignored. We liked that best.

But in the end, I did all right. Not a lot of kids were superior, but there were a few. After a couple of months of getting used to trying and not taking anything too seriously, I didn’t dread PE quite so much. I still dreaded it, but not as much.

So, that gray and soggy day in October, in the heart of football season, it was time to play flag football on the practice field where the school team ran their routines.

Flag football was something I’d done in California for PE too. I was at least familiar with the game. So when the sides were divvied up and I was left standing there with my four nerdy friends, I decided I was going to go for broke and really try to play well. Not just keep up — outshine.

It was a bold move. I had to be great or I’d spend the rest of the school year as the butt of every joke by every kid on the football team. There was no room for error. Any screw-up would be certain kid rep death.

John opted out, and Johnny was gangly and awkward. Scott just did his best to hang out with his other femme friend and stay out of the melee. But I dove in head first.

At first, I was reserved. I was being careful and not making mistakes. After about 10 minutes of that, I was really opening up the floodgates. I made catches — a new thing for me then — and made plays, ripping flags free from ball carriers, rushing the quarterback, doing whatever was asked of me and doing it really well. It was all going great.

Then my big moment came. I’d been so cool, I was sent to cover a receiver. That was huge for nerds. You’re always asked to stay back, stay out of the way, play deep, make sure you don’t get in the way of the “good” players. But I was being asked to be one of the good players.

I was in my glory.

I stood there, watching the kid as he flanked out wide toward the fence. That side of the field was mucky and wet from all the heavy autumn rains. The field, belonging to a Catholic school, wasn’t the top priority for school funding, so it was bad. Mud holes, thin grass, and one side lined with viney, climbing plants of some kind that grew up over the cyclone fence separating the school from whatever was beyond it. I never knew, and still don’t.

He was nothing special and I figured it wouldn’t take much to cover him. He was out there alone — no one else lined up near him — so I figured he wouldn’t be getting the ball. He was just there, but I had been assigned to him and I wasn’t going to let him be open on my watch. When the ball was snapped, I was ready.

He did a little fake that didn’t fool me a bit. Then he backed up, shuffling toward the fence. He was really close to the edge of the field, and I thought he might go out of bounds, but I had my “cool” on, and I was covering him anyway.

I laid off a couple of yards, and watched the quarterback’s eyes. When they locked on my guy, my heart palpitated audibly. Seriously, I could hear the beating of my heart outside my chest. When the ball came racing in at me, on a line, I freaked.

I stepped up and sort of shut my eyes, putting my hands out in front of me to swat the ball away. I felt the pigskin slap on my palms and suddenly I was holding it.

I’d intercepted the pass.

It took me a second to realize what’d happened. I almost screamed, staring at the ball, but something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention and I looked up, my limelight short-lived.

Everyone and their uncle was running right at me, full-speed.

I almost yelped, but I had to be “cool”. I bit my lip and started my gawky, slower-than-molasses-in-January run down the field. I didn’t know what happened to the kid behind me, the one I’d been covering. The waves of shouting voices coming from my right drown out any footfalls coming my way and I just ran. I got up to speed like a Peterbilt truck, but I ran as fast as my hormonally-enhanced body would carry me.

I’d gone maybe 10 yards when the tide of kids came in from the right in front of me, cutting me off. I twisted my body, trying to keep my flag out of their reach, and swerved heavily to my left, trying to get around the swell of bodies in front of me. I was caught up in the moment, running like the wind, my long black hair whipping out from my face as I hurtled headlong forward and to the left farther.

That’s when I noticed the immovable object coming up on me fast and merciless.

The fence.

I noticed for a moment that it was weird. Most cyclone fences had cylindrical posts, poles that held up the chain link portions. This one had I-beam posts, with the flat sides pointing toward the field — right at me.

I shut my eyes and held out my free hand, determined not to let go of the ball. A split second later my vision exploded into white and yellow sparks as my forehead careened off something, snapping back my head and causing a deafening ringing in my ears.

My weight shifted from the force of the blow, my head pulling back over the top of my body and sending me onto my back into the sloppy, gooey brown and red mud of the Georgia field. There was a splashy sort of plop! as I landed hard, full onto my back, my hair immediately sopping up water and flotsam from the turf, my clothes soaking through to underwear, jock strap and finally skin.

When I looked up, I was surrounded by kids, all looking somewhat concerned for me. My glasses were crooked on my face and I could only partially see the crowd, all of them murmuring and staring wide-mouthed at me. The PE teacher was bent over me, his hand resting on one knee.

“You okay?” he said, and I knew no matter how I answered, my “cool” was all gone, washed away by that muddy puddle in the middle of the practice field and swept away into the leaden sky.

“Tell you what — that was one hell of a hit on the noggin. Why don’t you call it a day? Go get showered up.”

He lent me a hand and helped pull me out of the quagmire, and quickly whipped his hand down my back and legs to knock as much mud off as possible. I was glad my socks weren’t too bad — just a few spots from the splash. But I’d have to go without underwear the rest of the day.

As I handed him the ball and walked across the field, trying to knock more crap off my head and the backs of my arms, I was about three quarters of the way off the field when the teacher came up behind me, the game having resumed.

“Hey, hold up,” he said. “Why don’t you go ahead and call your parents when you’re done showering. Go on home for the day.”

I looked up quizzically. “Really? I mean, I’m okay, I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine.” Secretly, I wanted to go home. My head was ringing and throbbing and all my cool was long, long gone. I had no idea how I was going to face the rest of the day. And without a hair dryer to control my long locks, I knew I was in for even more uncool.

“You’re gonna end up with one hell of a headache, JD,” he said gently. “I don’t think you’ve got a concussion, but you should probably just rest for today.”

I shrugged. “Okay,” I said. I continued on toward the gym.

“Hey JD,” he called once again, and I turned around to look at him, still trying to knock the thick, gooey gunk from my skin.

“Great game, man,” he said, and smiled broadly. “Why don’t you think about playing next year?”

This is an updated version of this story; if it appears in your reader or notifier, please take the time to read and let me know if it’s better now. Thanks! -jdt-

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I pushed the ancient, creaking wood-slat doors aside and stared into the saloon from the threshold. Every eye in the place fell on me while mine adjusted to the dimness of the interior. The heavy unfinished floor planks were gray and worn from years of boots dragging over ‘em, but the bar shined like glassy still water. The great mirror on the wall behind it reflected my backlit silhouette in the doorframe.

My parents were always the type of people that never had a good thing to say about their own kids, and didn’t mind insulting us in front of our friends. They also liked to embarrass us whenever they could. My dad would say how great this kid was at soccer, or how tough that kid on my 8th grade football team was, or how smart that kid over there seemed. He never had a kind word to say about me that I can recall. My mother, on the other hand, was the one that would take the thing you were most embarrassed about and bring it up in front of your friends. You know, like how much your ears stuck out, how bad your teeth were, your hair was a mess … stuff like that. Whatever the weak spot happened to be. That was her thing. She would say insulting things about you and if you dared mouth off back, you got slapped — or punched — in the mouth.

A long time ago she had some kind of surgery. I don’t remember if it was gall bladder surgery or what, but she couldn’t hold a bowel movement to save her life. Everything was a diarrhea attack. It meant rushing home at break-neck speeds and having to listen to her inhale sharply in fear and pain as each successive wave of Hershey squirts pressed against her very weak sphincter. She’d sprint into the bathroom and lock the door and be in there for what seemed like forever. It was a regular occurrence in our lives.

When we lived on Bell Avenue in Georgia, things got real interesting, because there was only ONE bathroom. That meant if she tied it up taking a big splasher, we all had to hold it … whatever “it” might’ve been. There were times I felt like I was going to wet myself before I got to go in there and whiz, and of course, there was always that charming aroma lingering behind her when she finally did give someone else a chance.

During our time there in Georgia, my parents bought a boat. I have no idea what make of boat it was anymore, but it was a 20 foot inboard ski boat. I think I found out about it one day when they showed up at school with it hitched to the back of the baby blue Oldsmobile Cutlass, pressing that poor old car’s rear end toward the street under its enormous weight. It was blue, too — kind of a sky blue from the bottom of the gunwale down. The top of it was white, like a lot of boats are. It had blue seats and a deep blue carpet inside, and the hold held all of our vests and bumpers for docking. In the deck there was a storage cabin for my mother’s water skis and of course all the other boat cubby holes were in place too.

When we lived in California, we lived along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, at the wide, dirty delta where they joined to dump into the San Francisco Bay. In Georgia, though, we were close to Lake Chicamauga. It was a huge lake that runs near Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is chock full of fish, especially large-mouth bass. So it was a boon for both parents; my mother liked to fancy herself a “skier”, and my old man liked to fish. After my mother got enough skiing, or got too drunk to safely continue, the old man would fish. We’d spend the days out there and usually end up back home after dark sometime, exhausted and sun-dried.

Out on the water, the smothering wet plastic sheet of the humid southern air wasn’t as bad. We had to watch for summer storms, but they were usually pretty evident in a short time. We’d be able to get to a safe pier somewhere along the lake and dock, find a restaurant and eat, and wait it out. You could fold out the seats in the boat and make little beds if you really needed to sleep a night on the water. It was pretty cool, but it didn’t have a lot of amenities. It was essentially a ski boat, a boat you’d spend a day in, and then head back for the night.

So anyway, we’d spend a lot of time out on the water during the days when my father didn’t have to work. He worked in shifts for the M&M/Mars plant in Cleveland, Tennessee, and every once in a while he’d end up with a string of time off, and we’d go boating. Mom would ski, Dad would fish, and the kids either did their homework or sat there trying to figure out what to do with ourselves. If it got really hot, we’d swim for a while. My mother always wore a light windbreaker jacket and jeans with those ridiculous tennis socks that just barely cover the foot in the shoe and have that stupid fuzzy dingle-ball hanging off the back over the mouth of the white tennis sneakers she had.

We were out once, cruising the lake, just doing the weekender thing. It was summer, so we didn’t have homework, and my brother Ryan and I spent our time annoying each other and trying to see if we could reach down into the water from our seats and let the lake drag against our arms. We were out near the middle of the water when suddenly my mother inhaled sharply, making a loud hissing noise, and sat bolt upright in her chair, hands clutched to her chest, face drawn and gaunt.

My father looked over at her. “What?” he said, concerned. I didn’t even know why he had to ask after so many years of marriage. She just looked worriedly back at him.

“Oh, diah?” he said, turning back to watch what the hell he was doing.

“All right, hold on,” he said, and punched the speed control of the boat full-throttle.

The boat’s plane rose then flattened out again as it accelerated over the smooth water. My brother and I sighed in the back of the vessel; now it was a race to see if we could find a bathroom or a restaurant.

This drama wasn’t unusual, but we took her more seriously when she suddenly stiffened her body rigidly, tightening her ass cheeks to try and help her rectum hold the flood in. My father swung the boat desperately to the port, heading into a cove, and didn’t slow as he plowed through the bay toward the far end. It bent around and there was a tiny, naked dock ahead … and standing a few yards back from the water’s edge was a Port-a-Potty. An outhouse.

Any old Port-a-Potty in a storm, though. He cut the engine and let it glide into toward the dock, my mother whimpering and making gasping little desperation noises, squeaking about not being able to stand. My dad stood on the boat’s gunwale and grabbed the cleats of the dock as the boat pushed forward, fighting hard not to let the boat slam into the dock. Me and Ryan were ordered to throw the bumpers over the side to cushion the blow, and finally my mother scrabbled over the top of the deck and jumped onto the silver-wood dock.

“Mom, I have to go too!” Ryan whined. “I need to go bad! Can I come with you??” He was whiny like her.

She rushed forward, just waving him on, and he waddled after her, jerking and twisting his life jacket as he ran. My mother pounded into the tiny plastic coffin and slammed the door behind her, leaving Ryan standing outside doing the crotch-pinch potty kid-dance.

My father sighed heavily and slumped down in his seat. It wouldn’t behoove him to speak to me, so I stared off into the woods, the water and the sky alternately. Minutes rolled by. My brother began calling to my mother to please hurry, please hurry, he really had to go, please hurry. More minutes went by. Even though we were some distance from them, he could clearly be heard begging her again to hurry up, hurry up, he’s gonna pee his pants, hurry. I shook my head, wondering why he didn’t just go behind a bush somewhere, but Ryan was too stupid for that.

Finally, the door creaked open, and my mother came out, her face twisted into a grimace of disgust. I figured the outhouse was nasty, full of fecal-urine stink and hotter than an oven out in the naked spot of the lake shore. She walked away from the little latrine, and Ryan smashed in. I heard him yell “OOOOOHHHHHHH …” in relief right through the building, then my mother’s harsh “whisper” to be quiet. In a couple of seconds, he came out and was laughing hysterically.

“Somebody threw their SOCKS in there!” he bellowed, his voice booming and echoing over the surface of the water and being amplified. “It was GROSS, man!! There’s poo all over ’em!!”

My mother, her mouth tight and drawn, grabbed his arm viciously and spoke into his ear, dragging him along with her as she headed back to the boat. She pushed him forward angrily and he clambered in, and she stepped up onto the gunwale to climb aboard, my dad reaching for her hand to help her.

And I noticed she wasn’t wearing those stupid tennis socks.

“What happened?” my dad said, looking at her face.

“Nothing,” she said tersely. “Let’s get going, please.”

“What is the matter?” he pressed.

“Nothing, I said!”

“What’re you so pissed about?”

“There wasn’t any toilet paper and it was disgusting, okay? Can we leave please?” she snapped.

I struggled with all of my might not to burst out laughing. Ryan was sitting on the other side of the inboard motor housing from me, staring at his lap. He never said another word, but I knew what’d happened. We all did.

She used her socks to wipe her diarrheic ass in a public outhouse. Ryan saw them in the putrid septic pool when he pissed on them, and bellowed her shame to the entire lake. Of course, no one was around to hear, and I never brought it up.

We motored on as though nothing ever happened, and I’m sure my mother thought that her secret was safe with her and my father. But, like I said, revenge is the sweetest dish sometimes. Now EVERYONE knows.

I don’t know what the heck it means; my father used to laugh about it with his cousin Gerry, who was Chubs’s dad. Gerry’d come over, kind of on a regular basis, and he’d sit out in the yard with my dad and mom and laugh, joke, and drink beer. My mother, of course, wouldn’t be outdone. She’d keep pace beer for beer with ol’ Gerry, and pretty soon she’d be hammered and slurring. Swaying and sloshing her way inside, she’d finally pass out on the bed or something. I don’t remember directly, but I guess this usually took place on weekends, because my father would stay up with Gerry after my mother lost consciousness and they’d laugh some more. Eventually, somehow, Gerry drove home.

Sometimes, Chubs would come with him. He’d hang out with my brother and me, and we’d try to find things to do to keep ourselves occupied. It was harder when it got too dark to stay outside. We had to find something we could do in the dark or in the house, and it was never any fun to be in the house with my slushy drunk of a mother. You never knew what she’d do when a few beers were in her.

One time Chubs and Gerry came early in the afternoon. His nasally little whining sister Missy didn’t come with them, usually. Ryan, Chubs and I spent our day getting around Bell Avenue’s surrounding neighborhood, heading south and across Greene Lake Road, just before it became Oak Avenue, and into an empty lot on the far side.

It was a hot day — all of them in the south are. The Cicadas buzzing in the thick, lush trees rimming the area only made it feel hotter. My brother Ryan and I, not knowing what they were actually called, just called them “heat bugs.” It seemed like the more they screamed, the hotter it got. The lot bordering Greene Lake Road was overgrown with tall grass, bramble bushes and dense, malicious undergrowth that tore at your pants and feet as you tried to plod through. It left burrs, seeds and insects deposited all over your denim, and I could only feel sorry for anyone dumb enough to wear shorts. They might’ve been cut to the bone.

Twigs snapped beneath our feet as we pushed through, me leading the way with Chubs close behind and Ryan on his heels. It felt like I was exploring the African savanna, and the thick, wet air, dense with humidity falling from the Cadet-gray sky and dripping over everything like molasses, refused to let the sweat evaporate that pooled out of our skin. The sun, never clearly visible to my eye in the southern sky, hid behind his vaporous veil and taunted us as we tried to reach the point of our journey: a tiny, green pond in the middle of that empty lot.

It was tucked carefully behind brush and scrubby little trees, but I’d spotted it from the car one day on the way home from somewhere. So that day, after Chubs, Ryan and I couldn’t figure out what else to do with our times, we decided to go check out the pond.

At least it was a way for me to get away from home.

As we approached the pond, swatting at buzzing invisible insects and debris from the dusty lot, we heard a distinct sound. It was one that made all of us stop and stare at that murky green water.

A splash.

We watched the ripples roll away from the center of that little body of water where a single white patch of froth was dying, and we knew.

“Yeah!” Ryan bellowed, and just as he did, the water broke again and a new set of ringlets gradually moved apart on the water.

“Okay, let’s get our gear together. We have to wait until the moon’s high,” I said authoritatively.

I have no idea who made me an authority on night fishing. At that point in my life I’d probably caught a grand total of three fish, and none of them had been large enough to keep. And I’d absolutely never been night fishing before.

But, both of the others nodded in firm agreement.

A final pop of the water and a silent ring testified to the idea, and we were bound for home.

Ryan was about seven at that time. Have you ever tried to make a 7-year-old wait for something? It’s a nightmare. He whined, he complained, he made me want to smack him. The sun wouldn’t set fast enough for him. My mom and Chubs’s dad, meanwhile, were getting happily stupid as the hours rolled away. My mother was always easier to be around while drunk if someone else was there; just make sure you stay out of her way so you don’t piss her off. And God only knew what was going to piss her off, because my brother and I sure didn’t. So we stayed as far away from her as we could, but no matter where we went we could hear her cackling, loud-mouth laugh and we watched the sun sink on the horizon.

Eventually, we needed to eat. Still the sun hovered, seeming to grip the sky like a man hanging from a cliff, refusing to fall over the horizon. We played outside some more. We tried to watch TV, but in the days before cable, there wasn’t jack on during the summer and early evening. We tried to read comic books, but I only had a couple, and they were boring to me. I’d read them a thousand times. We played with our dolls — I mean “action figures”. We drew pictures. Nothing worked, though. The earth had stopped spinning and it felt like the damned sun wouldn’t ever set.

We were chatting in our room about something when Ryan suddenly blurted, “Hey, it’s dark out!!”

We all bolted to Ryan’s bed, positioned just under the window facing north out of our bedroom. There was one facing west, too, but that one was buried beneath the smothering tendrils of a monster bush intent on world conquest.

Outside, the tiny bulb in the lonely streetlight cast a yellowish ring of warmth on the asphalt beneath it a few houses down the road. Houses had glowing amber patches set against the frames of pitch dark to mark their presence along the street, and the Cicadas had given way the to feverish chirping of crickets.

Night had fallen when we weren’t looking, and it was time to go fishing. After hours of tortured agony enduring endless strands of time waiting for this moment, we had enough time to prepare and then make our way through the thicket of the lot to that shiny, stagnant mega-puddle.

We raced out of the room and charged the kitchen. I quickly checked, as cabinet doors and the refrigerator banged open and closed, whether anyone was in the house.

My mother had passed out, nude from the waist up, face-first on her bed. She was loudly and wetly snoring so I opened the bathroom door wide, which meant I was closing the door to her room. Shaking my head, I watched as Chubs and Ryan were slapping bologna sandwiches together at a fever pitch.

“How many you want, JD?” Ryan asked as Chubs passed him another slice of bread. He slathered a load of mayonnaise on it and then set it beside him.

“I guess two,” I said, and joined the assembly line by slapping a slice of bologna on each set of sandwiches. I closed them all one by one as I did, and soon we had food for the three of us to go long into the night.

“Okay, that’s good, get some drinks,” I told Ryan. He was only too happy to obey instructions when it meant something for him, so he hurried back to the fridge and grabbed a few more cans of soda pop, one for each of us.

Chubs was putting everything into a grocery bag, which at that time were all paper. The loud rustling of the heavy brown bag was noisy and I put my finger to my lips to silence him.

“Quiet!” I said softly. “C’mon, let’s get our stuff and get going.”

My brother and I each had a pole, and we found a clunky old spare for Chubs among the others stored in the “spare room,” which was really a storage locker full of boxes and sundries that hadn’t been unpacked, weren’t able to find a place for, or simply weren’t needed in the rest of the tiny green asbestos-armored house. Without really thinking about it, I grabbed the tackle box, too — a collection of fishing equipment and supplies my father had from when I was a little boy.

With Chubs carrying the bag of food, Ryan carrying the bag of drinks, me carrying the tackle box, and all of us armed with our fishing rods, we set off toward that mysterious pond on the far side of Greene Lake Road. As we crossed the yard, the glow from the fire at the end of the cigarettes our fathers were smoking turned our way.

“Where y’all goin’?” I heard Gerry ask.

“Night fishin’,” Chubs said. “Up the road here a piece.”

That brought a round of wheezing, uproarious laughter from both men. “Oh, night fishin’, huh? Well, good luck then.” I could tell by the way my father spoke he was being facetious and condescending. I decided not to retort.

“We’ll be back before morning,” I called over my shoulder.

“I’m sure you will,” he said, and more laughter chased us up the street as we set off for the pond.

We headed up the hill south and crossed Greene Lake Road for the second time that day, and as we watched the full moon crest over the trees in the distance, we started across that empty lot.

We’d had to work hard for it in the light. At night it was downright hazardous.

Ryan kept shouting “Ah! Ah!” every time his foot fell farther that he expected into holes or divots. Chubs and I kept shushing him, but he’d just whine that he couldn’t help it. Big clods of dirt reached out of the black and tripped us, making us stumble. The tangles of dense, malevolent undergrowth that had slashed at us during the day slithered around our ankles and bound us at night. We fought for every inch, scanning every so many steps for the reflection of the moon in the pond, listening for the splash of the fish in its cooling muck-filled waters.

I saw a clearing ahead, and I whispered that it was probably the pond. The water would be the only place where the thicket would be clear. Chubs craned his neck and Ryan stood on tip-toes, trying to follow my pointing finger into the blackness.

Finally they said they could see it, and they moved off ahead of me toward the clearing.

Distances are deceptive in the dark, though.

Ryan was ahead of Chubs and had taken about 10 steps when he screamed and flailed. I heard a slick, slopping sound and his grunts of disgust before he started screaming for help, he was falling, help, catch him, helphelphelp!

Chubs burst out laughing his hyena’s lilting laugh, but Ryan caught his wrist as he toppled, and the next sound I heard was a series of splashing into ever-deepening water. There was a wailing screech as Ryan sputtered and spat slimy pond water out of his mouth, and a split-second later I heard the water’s surface break again followed by more sloppy, mucking footfalls and rushing water as it pours off a wet body, then the wails of Ryan mixed with Chubs’s laugh.